Best Coffee

Kaldi's Coffee Roasting Company

Pour-over coffee is all the rage among java geeks, and for good reason. This high-precision (carefully calibrated water temperature and amount of ground coffee), low-tech (pour nearly boiling water over grounds in conical filter) brewing method produces the consummate cup of coffee, fully flavored without bitterness. A pour-over coffee bar is one of the highlights of the newly renovated original location of Kaldi's. Meanwhile, at the Kaldi's downtown location, you can still experience the high-tech Clover machine, a spendy contraption that yields a similarly purist-pleasing cup of joe. Both methods make sense for Kaldi's, as the company takes such pride in the coffee it roasts — and deservedly so; whether you want to sip your way to a coffee epiphany or simply need your morning fix, Kaldi's impresses. At the Kaldi's website, you can read about the small coffee farms with which the company's buyers have built relationships (the resulting coffees are called "Relationship Roasts," naturally). At the store you can learn the nitty-gritty of the coffee you're enjoying — the Guatemalan San Pedro La Laguna, for example, features four varietals of bean, grown at elevations from 1,500 to 1,600 meters, washed and then sun-dried — or take in easy-to-digest tasting notes (in the case of the Guatemala brew: Concord grape, molasses and cocoa). Whichever coffee you try, you'll likely render the same tasting note of your own: Yum.